Sports Field Project Update

This has been the most stressful of all of my projects however I think it has the greatest potential for enhancing the children's education. My APCD suggested that I drop the schools whose principals have been less than helpful in the project thus far. I really want to drop 3 of them however there are 4 reasons that I wont:

1. This isn't about improving the principal's school but increasing the educational opportunities of the children
2. If I don't do it now it will be extremely difficult and unlikely that it will ever happen.
3. There is a jealousy mentality that if someone else has something that you don't you should vandalize and destroy it. I would rather build fields on all 6 schools and have them remain undamaged than build them on only 3 and then have them be destroyed.
4. This project is part of a larger plan that cannot come to fruition fully unless this part is complete.

When doing a large development project it is usually well planned with a tight schedule with specific goals that must be met on or before a specific date. Since I started the project in a foreign country with no guidance or precedent, the process has been convoluted with a lot of struggles and setbacks.

I recruited 9 students to help me with this because I thought this would be a good learning experience for them and I could teach them a lot about engineering and running projects. This has turned out to be much more of a learning experience for me and much less of a teaching one.

I spent way too much time trying to get "official" site plans for the schools. After months of going through these channel I extrapolated site plans from a property plan of my village that I had for months. Then I measured the size and location of the existing buildings using a 100 meter measuring tape with the assistance of the students. I drafted the site plans and the existing structures on Microsoft Visio. I used these drawings along with field templates to consult the educators in the design of the fields.

As of Tuesday I had consulted with a professional engineer who has 20+ years of sports field construction experience and had started designing the field placement. I had planned on leaving the project at that point and completing the design and proposal upon returning since today I am leaving South Africa.

The South African LOTTO provides a lot of funding for sports programs, new sports field construction and upgrading of old sports field facilities. My key school, Mnyamana Primary School, received some funding last year so I intended to finish the proposal with a final design and then just tell them to go ahead and build the fields. Tuesday morning I received a call from the field consultant saying that Mnyamana and the LOTTO both called them and said they wanted him to start building the fields and he needed the location where I wanted the field built. Wednesday I rushed out and came up with a design and staked out where I wanted the combination field to be built. They claim that they want to build it immediately so we'll see if it gets built by the time I get back; it would be awesome but TIA so it's highly unlikely.

Initially I wanted to have the project completely done having all fields built by next year; approximately 4 per school with 6 schools. I envisioned each school having beautiful grass soccer fields, cinder running tracks, baseball diamonds, basketball, volleyball, and tennis courts like the ones we had in high school. This is exactly why you don't do projects unilaterally. My imaginary world had several problems:

1. Grass fields are expensive and difficult to maintain (fertilize twice a year, water everyday, cut three times a week) and they would be destroyed withing a few months since none of the schools have the resources or training to maintain them
2. The sites were far too small to have all of those fields built on them
3. Some sports are extremely expensive due to the amount of equipment required

The project scope has now been revised:
1. Each school will get a running track (some will be smaller than 400m so that they fit) with a soccer field inside
2. Each primary school will get 2 combination volleyball, netball, tennis courts
3. Each secondary school will get combination volleyball, basketball tennis courts
4. Courts will be made of concrete and fields of clay to minimize maintenance costs
5. Each school will have a concrete palisade fence constructed around its campus.
6. Berms or "seating hills" will be built next to the fields instead of building bleachers since they will be less expensive to construct and require less maintenance
7. I will help them design the placement of the fields and structures taking into account future construction plans (libraries, computer labs, etc.)
8. They will design and build the brai stands and pavilions for their own schools.

I have also changed the construction schedule. I initially wanted to have them all built by the time I leave in September 2010 by building a new field constructed every three months. This pace would not allow the schools to fully utilize the fields and would also be extremely stressful for me. I have decided that the community should take more responsibility for the project. I will help them complete the design and acquire funding but fields will be built on 6-month intervals.

Once the development forum has been established they will take over the management of the project and oversee the completion of the project which will occur in 2011 or 2012 depending on when we can get started. The fields will not be done by the time I leave but I am fine with that because constructing the fields is not the only goal of the project. I also want to build the people's capacity to do such projects on their own.